The Media Research Center had been praising J.D. Vance for spreading the lie about Haitians in Ohio eating people’s pets because furthered right-wing anti-immigration narratives. When people cited Vance’s lie as a part of the toxic rhetoric that could be blamed in an man attempting to shoot Donald Trump, the MRC doubled down on defending the lie. Jorge Bonilla, chief lover of the lie, dismissed it as merely “rhetoric” in a Sept. 15 post:
As we exposed earlier, the Regime Media have wasted no time in blaming former President Donald Trump’s “rhetoric” for the second assassination attempt against him. The evening newscasts have now picked up MSNBC’s lead, tying the attempted shooting to the “dogs and cats rhetoric coming out of Springfield, Ohio.
Watch as Linsey Davis, in her return to the Whirled News Tonight anchor chair since her horrendous moderation of the ABC presidential debate, ties the aborted assassination attempt to Springfield in her opening rundown:
[…]After downplaying the assassination attempt in her opening rundown as a “threat against the former president”, Davis goes on to properly report it as what it is. The rhetorical link here is implicit.
NBC’s Lester Holt goes a step further, directly tying the failed shooting attempt to Springfield:
[…]NBC and the Regime Media waste no time in imputing the shooting to “rhetoric” and attempting to blame Trump for the latest, albeit failed, attempt on his life. Once the shooter’s motives become clear, how soon before the Regime Media retract? If they ever do at all?
But it wasn’t “rhetoric” — it was a out-and-out lie, one that Bonilla endorsed for partisan political reasons.
Curtis Houck similarly whined about the linkage:
On Monday, CBS Mornings ghoulishly placed the second Trump assassination attempt in two months alongside the former President’s “incendiary rhetoric” triggering “threats of violence” in Springfield, Ohio and against Haitian immigrants.
This disgusting attempt to muddy the waters and minimizing those wanting to kill Trump was seen hours earlier as ABC and NBC willingly chose to make this disgusting connection on Sunday’s World News Tonight (helmed by debate co-moderator Linsey Davis) and NBC Nightly News (with Lester Holt making a rare weekend evening appearance). Thankfully, Monday’s Good Morning America and Today didn’t make the same choice.
CBS co-host and Kamala Harris donor Gayle King downplayed the threat in the show’s “Eye Opener” teases: “A man is in custody after what looks like another assassination attempt on former President Trump. We have the latest on the investigation.”
Seconds later, co-host and former NFL player Nate Burleson pivoted to Springfield: “There are growing fears of racially motivated violence in Ohio due to Trump’s false claims about immigrants.”
[…]Fill-in co-host Kristine Johnson pivoted from Trump being nearly killed to ripping his “inflammatory rhetoric” being responsible for “more threats of violence in Springfield, Ohio.”
“The city has seen multiple bomb threats against city hall and local schools after false claims from former President Trump and his running mate about immigrants eating pets. Now, they deny stoking racial hatred for political gain,” she added.
Congressional correspondent Nikole Killion announced from Springfield her disgust with Trump and running mate/Senator JD Vance (R-OH) for “doubl[ing] down on these disproven claims about Haitian immigrants here in Springfield” and fretted the mayor “feels like [the town is] caught in a political vortex.”
“This normally quiet town of roughly 60,000 residents still on edge since false claims about Haitian immigrants started online and were amplified by former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance,” she continued, adding that “[t]he Proud Boys were seen marching through the streets over the weekend and a branch of the Ku Klux Klan spread leaflets with hateful messages.”
Killion later said “Vance condemned the threats of violence,” but dismissed them because “he continued to defend the false claims.”
Houck refused to explicitly admit that Vance was lying.
Nicholas Fondacaro tried to distance Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric (and lies) from the cycle of political violence with the help of a Republican governor: “As for CNN’s repeated suggestions that Trump’s rhetoric at the debate lead to the bomb threats, that turned out to be false too. Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine held a press conference on Monday and explained that the threats came from outside the United States and they were all hoaxes. “33 threats, 33 hoax,” he said. “We have people, unfortunately, overseas who are taking these actions.
As for CNN’s repeated suggestions that Trump’s rhetoric at the debate lead to the bomb threats, that turned out to be false too. Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine held a press conference on Monday and explained that the threats came from outside the United States and they were all hoaxes. “33 threats, 33 hoax,” he said. “We have people, unfortunately, overseas who are taking these actions.”
Neither DeWine nor Fondacaro offered evidence that the people being threatened knew they were hoaxes at the time of the threat.
Tim Graham huffed in his Sept. 16 podcast (bolding in original):
The foiled second assassination attempt on Donald Trump wasn’t uniformly treated as a serious security problem. We found major networks blaming Trump’s hot talk on migrants and pets for his own assassins. They blamed him for not toning rhetoric down — the flagrantly hostile networks!
Curtis Houck explains how Sunday unfolded. NBC’s Lester Holt made a rare Sunday appearance: “Today’s apparent assassination attempt comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric on the campaign trail itself. Mr. Trump, his running mate JD Vance continue to make baseless claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio. This weekend, there were new bomb threats in that town.”
On ABC, Sunday anchor (and Kamala debate coddler) Linsey Davis opened the show with the Trump news, followed with this: “Springfield, Ohio on edge. Local schools are being threatened with violence and a college shuts down activities after threats were made following the baseless rumors that Asian immigrants have been eating pets.” Curtis suggested these threats could be from outside the country. After the taping, Gov. Mike DeWine announced all the threats were hoaxes and came from abroad.
Is Graham repeatedly bolding “baseless” because he’s tacitly admitting Vance’s claims are lies? Or is he suggesting that there is actual evidence behind them (despite nobody else having offered any)?
Bonilla came back to whine yet again:
With the aftermath of the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump drawing significant coverage, the Springfield “dogs and cats” story is beginning to recede from view- except on CBS, which chose to flog the story for at least one more night.
Watch CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell’s absolutely bonkers open to the Springfield item filed by correspondent Nikole Killion:
[…]NBC’s Lester Holt did the same exact thing yesterday- the forced and accusatory tying in of Springfield with the most recent assassination attempt. For all the media’s denunciations of “inflammatory rhetoric”, they sure are good at cooking up some incitement of their own.
Killion’s report is a rehash of the common themes echoed in Springfield coverage, but with a reduced emphasis on actual cats and dogs. There was time to replay some JD Vance video from Sunday, and there was time to ask a restaurant manager about prank calls asking whether they serve cats. On plates.
Bonilla appended a tweet of his in which he ranted: “BURYING THE LEDE DEEP INTO THE EARTH’S CRUST: The matter of the Springfield bomb threats being FOREIGN HOAXES is buried at the end of CBS’s report- the only network evening newscast still milking…errrr…covering Springfield.” Again, the targets of the threats didn’t know they were hoaxes — and Bonilla refused to admit that the actual hoax was the Springfield story itself.
Graham returned to whine as well:
The badly disguised Democrats at PBS are having a hard time with this second assassination attempt on Donald Trump. They barely passed over it on Sunday night, and on Monday night, News Hour anchor Amna Nawaz and NPR reporter Tamara Keith savaged Trump-Vance again for demonizing Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.
Curtis Houck pointed out on Sunday night that it was a 30-second news brief, followed by more Springfield bashing of Trump-Vance. I’m guessing the PBS News Weekend shows are pre-produced during the week and are not to be disturbed. So you get 30 seconds in the “News Wrap” on an assassination attempt, and eight minutes on celebrity endorsements of presidential candidates.
[…]On Monday night’s News Hour, anchor Amna Nawaz spent a short time expressing surprise that no one’s really slowing down or toning down after this assassination attempt, and then turned again to whipping on Vance, using his feisty interview on CNN with Dana Bash: “Meanwhile, speaking of political rhetoric, we should point out that the vice presidential candidate on the Republican side, J.D. Vance, continues to repeat baseless claims about the Haitian immigrant population in Ohio.”
Bash fact-checked Vance like she was Linsey Davis on the claims of pet-eating, just like all Democrats want them to do, incessantly.
Graham didn’t explain why Vance shouldn’t be called out for spreading a lie. Instead, he nonsensically groused that fact-checking is “reliable DNC messaging.” And he still refused to explictly admit that the Haitians-eating-pets story is a lie.
Bonilla served up one more fit of deceptive rage:
Just 48 hours after the second attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, the Regime Media are back to leveraging the rhetoric regarding Springfield, Ohio: this time, as a whatabout device with which to justify future insightful rhetoric against Trump.
Watch as CBS News, in an item filed by correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns, posits a weird tu quoque when discussing campaign rhetoric:
[…]Note that Burns mentions the bomb threats without ever mentioning that Ohio Governor Mike DeWine disclosed them to be hoaxes originating from a hostile country to be disclosed later.
Note that Bonilla forgot to mention that the people who faced those threats still felt quite threatened and didn’t know the source — and, once again, refused to concede that the eating-pets story was a lie all along.
UPDATE: Vance’s lies were so blatant that even Fox News host Howard Kurtz took him to task, highlighting a claim from DeWine that “these allegations were garbage.” Bonilla and the rest of the MRC refused to tell their readers about this.